Going Home
by magic-carpet
Summary: While living in LA, Speed is brought back to thoughts of home after he’s shot and his guardian angel saves him. Based on my TalkCSI story CSI: Miami Therapy. Oneshot.


Author: Lilly

Title: Going Home

Pairing: None, though you can interpret it any way you'd like to

Summery: While living in LA, Speed is brought back to thoughts of home after he's shot and his guardian angel saves him.

Rating: PG-13 for language and moderate graphic violence.

A/N: This is basically a side-story to another story I wrote that's been put on my back burner and is over at TalkCSI. It's about Speed being put undercover in LA (my hometown!) through blackmail, the team's figuring out he's alive, and their struggle to bring him back home. I was planning to do this from a different perspective, but I want to see how it turns out through Speed's eyes. It's a bit unrealistic, but hey, it's Miami we're talking about. Please R/R.

**Going Home**

The LA air reminds me of something familiar. I can't place it, exactly. It's something like love, something you can't describe but it's surely the best feeling in the world.

Now, I've never been in love. Maybe that's why I can't really relate the air here to _anything._ People say it's the most polluted air in the US, but to me, it's as pure as a fourteen-year old virgin. We get the Westerlies winds from Hawaii, along with the seashore breeze and the aura of a place waiting to wrap its arms around you and share it's mysteries. It's a beautiful city filled with beautiful people just waiting to be discovered.

When people tell their LA stories- they go off to become a famous actor and come back with tremendous stories of discover and heartbreak. LA stories aren't exactly about LA itself, but what happens there: you sightsee and claim that LA is where you'll make your fortune, you get a chance at stardom, you get rejected, you go broke, you fall in love, you get your heart broken. They're all similar, but they're also very different.

LA is everything: the convicts and the celebrities, the beaches and the deserts, the stunning Beverly Hills mansions and the boarded up apartments and homeless shelters in Downtown, it's a beautiful paradise and your worst nightmare, the huge industrial powerhouse and that tiny Mexican restaurant next to the Holiday Inn, the schoolhouse in the middle of nowhere and the schoolhouse rock soundstage, the old softball fields out in Simi and the actor's guild organizations in the heart of Sherman Oaks, the families in the suburbs and the hopeful twenty-something year olds living alone on Sunset waiting for their chance. LA is the big city and the little towns, the high schools and the jailhouses, the home to gangs and the home to churches, a mess of things, an artist's worst nightmare and an actor's dream come true. It's the evil and the good, the beautiful and the ugly, the comforting and the horrifying, the place to find yourself or lose yourself.

Of course, that's right. LA reminds me of home.

My name is Tim Speedle, and I've been dead for three months.

I'm still not sure how it happened, but I don't ask questions. My old life was about challenging what appeared on the surface and discovering the truth. My new life is about keeping in line and keeping your mouth shut.

I was approached after work one day by a man in a dark suit. He never showed me his face. He told me that he had a case against me, showed it to me, and I, being a CSI, knew it was enough to get me fired and the lab put under a microscope. He offered me a chance to fake my death (so that Horatio wouldn't try and fight the case) and move to LA to work undercover and establish a new branch of LA cops. I took it hands-down to protect the lab.

I was shot on duty in a jewelry store after my gun malfunctioned. I died in my boss, and one of my best friend's, arms, and bled out across the sleek black floors. I remember I was wearing a dark blue dress shirt and black slacks. I had trouble getting to work that morning because of how tired I was. Calleigh had yelled at me earlier for borrowing her light and forgetting to replace it. Horatio and I talked of family. I died.

But I was injected with drugs to mimic death beforehand and the shot was completely staged, so it doesn't really count.

I woke up in a morgue, but it wasn't Alexx's. Apparently Alexx had never performed an autopsy because I hadn't been cut open, so she must have been in on what was going on and had been blackmailed into silence. There were men dressed in white, but they never spoke to me. They ushered me into a car, and I was driven to a motel room where some of my things had been taken and were waiting for me. I never said anything to anyone, for fear, and out of confusion. I hadn't been told what would happen after I was shot.

The next day I was flown to LA where I began to work undercover in Narcotics under strict direction, with two other young guys who were new to the branch as well. My new name was James Smith, and I was a single thirty-year old former police officer who had just joined Narcotics. I lived in a tiny apartment in downtown. I was told that I wasn't to say anything about my past life, and I didn't. If whoever had done this had been able to dig up enough info to get me fired, I wasn't sure what else they could do. My new life began, and I got in with LA gangs and began my undercover work. I thought of life back in Miami, but didn't talk about it.

This is my life as an undercover agent in Los Angeles, California.

Every day I get up, get breakfast, walk to the LAPD Downtown Police Station, and go back around. There I'll find a small annex to the building where we meet. It reminds me of the detective's branch back in Miami, but smaller. I do paperwork based on gangs, and will sometimes be sent out to join whatever gang I'm targeting and work on them. I've never heard of this kind of work, but I do it. I get paid just enough. I don't know how act on this besides to do what I'm told. I never try to contact Miami; I never try to go back. I start over.

I am still unsure of what exactly happened and how I got here.

I love it here.

I want to go home.

It is Sunday, and I don't have to work today. I don't have my Ducati anymore, and I'm trying to save up for one. Instead I get dressed late in the day, eat at a diner, and walk around Downtown.

Downtown LA is hard to describe unless you've been there. It's a few different worlds packed into one little area of LA. You head over the freeway out of North-West Hollywood and the Universal City area, where apartment windows are boarded up, and daylight is drug sales business and nighttime comes the business of murder, and see Staples Center approach on your left. Parking lots litter the streets around you, all trying to earn a buck or two on LA basketball fans, or whatever concert is playing at Staples Center. You can see the massive skyscrapers in the distance, clumped up, but you don't realize how huge they are until the freeway cuts the clump in half and they're suddenly rising above you from outside your window. The major freeways intersect up ahead, most tagged by hundreds of graffiti artists. Prime real-estate area is being used as the skyscrapers end, and the brand new condos section begins. They're mimicking Tuscany, and aren't doing too great of a job. Some are still being built. In LA, no space is wasted when it comes to how many people you can cram into one city.

If you were to exit the freeway now, you'd hit the California Science Center, Exposition Park, the Museum of Natural History, and USC. If you keep going and exit one mile further, you hit the slums, the hidden jewel of LA, which I proudly call home.

You don't want to be in the slums without a registered gun at your hip and a police license, even if it is fake and belonging to a James Smith.

Downtown holds the minorities of LA; basically everyone who isn't white. Some people don't speak English. Some don't want to have anything to do with you. Some are there to sell, some there to buy, and some, probably most, are homeless and come for the cheap food, easy thievery in outdoor shopping kiosks, and many homeless shelters. You don't really talk to people. You don't buy anything that doesn't come in a labeled package, certified edible. You don't stay out past dark. You don't go to the 7-11s. You get home fast; you lock your doors and board your windows.

Some would call it a living nightmare. I call it paradise.

Downtown has become my home over the past few months and I've gotten used to how to maneuver through it. First: learn Spanish. I've picked up some here and there, and remember some things Eric would say around the lab back in Miami. I can ask for anything I want, and know basic replies. It would help if I knew the whole damn language, but what can you do.

Second: Know where's safe to buy from. I already know that the older man who doesn't speak a word of English at the beginning of the Fairfax shopping alley who sells tacos is _not_ who I want to buy from. I've seen things move inside of those things, and I'm sure he doesn't know what the word 'edible' means. On the other hand, there's a sweet Mexican woman halfway down my own Miracle Mile who I know I can haggle a price down on the knock-off dress shirts she sells at a starting price of $20. I go to her so frequently I'm sure she thinks I'm in love with her.

Third: don't give money to beggars, because you'll be broke in ten minutes. I'm all for helping the homeless, but half of them are drug addicts who went broke and want money for their next crack session, and they're everywhere. In stores, outside them, next to them, behind the register. Everyone wants money out of you.

Fourth: don't buy the baby turtles, no matter how cute they are. I found this out the hard way: bought two for $4, thinking it'd be nice and simple. Went to Petco when I needed food, and the guy told me they'd die if I left them in the tiny cage they came with. $4 turtles turned into a $100 plus upkeep investment, and they smell up the apartment.

But anyway, it's all a learning process.

So I'm here in Downtown, on Fairfax. I'm turning into the alleyway where everyone sells everything because I want a new pair of jeans. I usually get my jeans at expensive stores towards the wealthier parts of LA, my only pricey clothing items, but today I want to see if I can get them cheap around here with everything else I get. Otherwise, I'll hit Levis or Lucky Jeans, though I don't have much money left from this week's payday.

It's a beautiful day, for LA weather, wool and breezy. That's another thing. LA has wacky weather. One day it's roasting hot, so hot you won't lift your head and you sweat from standing around, and two days later it's raining and so windy, flecks of dirt and dust hurt when they hit your face. We have everything; mudslides, earthquakes, fires (we have a whole season for fires) and now, dust storms. Rainstorms come seldom, if not at all, but I heard from one of my narcotics buddies that in 2005 it rained for a week here, we got hail, and that the annual rainfall for that year was thirty-seven inches. Go figure, it's three this year.

So I'm coming around to a store I know sells cheap jeans when I see a speck of red in the huge crowd of people. I stop dead in my tracks and look again.

I almost pass out. I'd know that red anywhere.

Horatio.

I sprint to the bus stop, and even though I could walk home, I take the bus because I can't risk seeing him again, and I don't trust my own legs to get me home. I know it was him, I'm sure. What I'm wondering is what he's doing in LA? Does he know about me? Is he looking for me? Then I start to calm down. First, he could be here for business with LAPD and not even be thinking about me. Of course, crime labs must keep in touch. And even if he does know I'm here, that's a good thing, right, because then I can see him again.

Do I want to see him again?

After what happened, I almost don't. I love Horatio like a brother, don't get me wrong, but what do I say? "Hey, H, yeah, I'm alive. What's up with you?"

Might not go over so well.

I try not to think about Horatio over the next few days. I'm conflicted, and I pray that it really wasn't him and that it'll never come up again. I want my life to go back to normal, or as close as possible. I get back in the swing of things. I get my new jeans a few days later. I don't see Horatio again for almost a week, and before I do, I'm thinking that I won't ever again.

But a week later, I'm shot.

It's a familiar scene. I'm in an alley with some druggies who are getting ready to sell. It's 11pm, and the alley is empty except for the gang and some teenager who wants heroin. My hand is reaching in the back of my leather jacket for my gun and some cuffs. I know I'm ready to radio for backup and that no one will see me. Adrenaline pumps through my veins, as it does before every bust. I've been waiting for this gang to do drugs for a while, since I knew there was something illegal going on within the group.

My fingers touch the barrel of the gun, and I feel ecstatic. I use my free hand to grab my radio, thinking no one's looking at me, and turn away. I anticipate a small celebration back at the station. I think about pizza and beer and hitting the clubs. I think about screaming 'LAPD' at the top of my lungs. I think about home, and the beer nights with the team, but the thought's gone in an instant.

Benito, the leader of the gang, whips out a .45. He aims it straight at my chest.

"I always thought somethin' was up wit you, man," he said, "but I never thought you was a fucking cop."

I freeze. The rest of the gang turns on me as well. I feel the eyes burning holes in my skin. I start to sweat.

"Touch the gun and I'll blow your goddamn heart open, mother fucker."

I know I have to talk my way out of this one. I'm shaking. This hasn't ever happened to me, here or in Miami. My thoughts wander, my head pounds, blood rushes in my ears. I'm truly afraid. My voice is weak, and comes out in a squeak. "What you goin' on about, man? A cop, right, man, I' 's a cop and you's is a fucking ballerina."

"You fucker, you. Thinking you can be one of us, getting' ready to bust us. You's gonna wish you never met me, goddamn son of a bitch." He tightens his grip on the trigger.

I whip out my gun in an instant, but he's faster. I hear the explosion in the barrel, I see Benito's distorted face as the gun kicks, and I feel the bullet slam into my chest. I stagger backwards. My vision goes blurry. Benito and his gang are gone, and the dark alley's colors are blending together into mush. I fall to my knees, a red stain spreading across my shirt. Then I'm on my stomach, my face pressed against the cool, wet floor, the alley's smell of filth and grime filling nostrils and blood pooling on the ground. Some of it gathers around my face, and I feel it soak into my hair and cloud my vision.

_This is it,_ I think. _I wish I had been able to tell Horatio…_

I'm gathered up from underneath the arms. My weight is heavy, my eyelids already shut. I'm lifted, and the blood sticks to my face and is streaked down my whole front.

I'm turned over, my shirt ripped open, and 911 is called. I hear a soothing voice, feel warm hands wipe the blood from my face. It's rising in my throat and dribbles out of my mouth. I can't breathe, but the voice calms me and the warm hands continue to gather blood away from my face as I cough it up. My chest is tight and it hurts. I'm freezing, shirtless in a dark alley at midnight in LA in October, bleeding to death. I don't have the strength to open my eyes and see who my guardian angel is, but I have a feeling.

Horatio eventually allows the paramedics to take me. I know I'm going to be all right. I know that in a few months, I'll be back in Miami, and Horatio and I will be after the blackmailer. We'll fight the case and win. I'll be a CSI again. I'll meet Ryan Wolfe. I'll get my best friend Eric back. Alexx will call me by 'Timmy' again. I'll start to joke with Calleigh again. I'll fall in love.

As I'm wheeled away, I slip into unconsciousness, but not before catching Horatio's words to me. His voice is filled with the pain and sadness of an old man whose heart has been broken as many times as years he is old. I can picture him with his hands and jacket bloodied, his face twisted in a grimace, the bottoms of his pants legs wet. He'll put his hands on his hips and hang his head down, hair falling over his eyes.

"You didn't have to, Tim."


End file.
